The fire in the stone furnace flickered lazily, like an old cat unwilling to wake from an afternoon nap.
Kafka sat on a rough wooden bench inside Eldric's giant bone nest. The smell of smoke, dried blood, and old iron mixed together into a strange perfume that only war survivors could tolerate.
He was still processing everything he had just heard.
About his father.
About his mother.
About Magnus.
And about a world that was far more broken than he had ever imagined.
Then suddenly—
Grrrrrkkk.
Kafka's stomach growled.
Loud enough for the sound to echo faintly through the cavern of giant bones.
Eldric stopped talking.
He looked at Kafka.
Then at his stomach.
And chuckled.
"Well," he said casually with a cigarette between his lips. "Looks like the little prince is hungry."
Kafka felt slightly embarrassed.
"Sorry…"
"Sorry for what?" Eldric stood up and stretched his shoulders like a bear waking from hibernation. "History lessons always make people hungry. It's a side effect historians rarely talk about."
He walked toward a corner of the room filled with strange items.
Kafka had thought it was a pile of junk.
Apparently,
it was the kitchen.
Eldric grabbed a large black pan, several pieces of monster meat hanging from a rope, and a bag of wild vegetables that God knows when he had picked them.
His movements were quick.
Practiced.
Natural.
Kafka blinked several times.
He looked like a war beggar who had slept in trenches for ten years.
But the way he held a kitchen knife?
Like a royal chef.
"Don't look at me like that," Eldric said without turning around. "I've lived alone in this frozen hell for twenty-five years. If I couldn't cook, I'd have starved to death before any demon got the chance to kill me."
The knife in his hand moved swiftly.
Tak. Tak. Tak. Tak.
The vegetables were chopped with almost artistic precision.
The monster meat was sliced thin.
The fire flared.
Oil sizzled.
The aroma of food suddenly filled the room like a nostalgic song arriving uninvited.
Kafka swallowed.
"Sir Eldric… you're seriously good at cooking."
Eldric grinned.
"Of course. And call me uncle."
He flipped the meat in the pan.
"I'm a man of many talents."
He exhaled cigarette smoke.
"I can fight. I can kill. I can cook."
"And sometimes," he added casually, "I can make annoying people disappear from the world."
Kafka wasn't sure whether to laugh or not.
Eldric started talking again while cooking.
His tone was relaxed, like someone chatting in a roadside café.
"So, where were we?"
The oil hissed.
"After the war against the cosmic beings ended… the world tried to return to normal."
He added spices to the pan.
The scent was sharp yet comforting.
"Grand Aurelis continued to operate as a monarchy."
"But there was one important tradition."
He pointed the spatula at Kafka.
"The selection of the Seven Paladins."
Every few years, when older Paladins were ready to retire, the kingdom held a grand trial.
Anyone could participate.
From any country.
From any background.
If someone passed—
they would become a Paladin.
The king's sword and shield.
The protectors of the kingdom.
And the symbol of Grand Aurelis's strength.
"And yes," Eldric said as he tossed vegetables into the pan, "you guessed it. I took that test."
Kafka raised an eyebrow.
"You?"
Eldric snorted.
"Don't sound so surprised, little prince."
He placed his hands on his hips.
"I'm the strongest Paladin in history."
Kafka didn't doubt it.
Just standing near this man made his bones feel heavier.
Even though his appearance, attitude, and cigarette-covered body looked nothing like the strongest Paladin in existence.
"I didn't join out of ambition," Eldric continued.
He lowered the flame.
"I just wanted to stay close to my sister."
Alvina Vaelorian.
Kafka's mother.
"When she married your father and moved to Grand Aurelis, I followed."
He shrugged.
"Becoming a Paladin was the easiest way to live in the palace without being called unemployed."
Kafka chuckled softly.
But Eldric's expression changed slightly.
Not completely serious.
Yet a cold shadow appeared in his eyes.
"This is where Magnus began to play his game."
He flipped the meat.
"He started suggesting names for new Paladins to the king."
At first, nothing seemed strange.
Magnus was the king's brother.
A legendary general.
Everyone trusted him.
"But secretly," Eldric said quietly, "he began poisoning the old Paladins."
Kafka froze.
"Poisoning them?"
"Yes."
Eldric shrugged casually.
"Not ordinary poison. Extremely subtle magical poison."
"Old Paladins began dying one by one."
Illness.
Accidents.
Mysterious curses.
The reasons were always different.
But the result was the same.
They died.
And their positions were replaced by new Paladins chosen by Magnus.
Eldric tasted the food.
"Hmm. Needs more salt."
He added some.
"At first I was only suspicious."
He stared at the pan.
"Then I began to feel something wrong about the new Paladins."
They changed.
Cold.
Fanatical.
And their aura…
was not human.
"Magnus was using cosmic magic," Eldric said.
"No one knows where he got it."
But the effects were obvious.
He brainwashed the new Paladins.
And gave them power.
Power that came from something far older than the world.
"The six Paladins became vessels."
Eldric raised six fingers.
"Vessels for the servants of Azhraviel."
Kafka swallowed.
"The seven deadly sins…"
Eldric nodded.
"But only six had bodies."
"Pride had no vessel."
He smiled faintly.
"At least… that's what I thought back then."
Kafka felt cold.
"Why didn't father stop Magnus?"
Eldric placed the food onto two wooden plates.
"Because your father was too kind for this world."
He handed one plate to Kafka.
"He never doubted his brother."
They began eating.
The monster meat was tender and savory.
Far better than Kafka had expected.
Eldric continued casually while eating.
"Magnus didn't only control Grand Aurelis."
He pointed west.
"He manipulated the Clan of Evil in the Yue Empire."
Then another direction.
"The Shinobi of the Pure Shadow Sect."
Then upward.
"Even the High Elves and Dark Elves of Lythariel."
A silent alliance formed.
A shadow army.
An army that no one saw until the day the coup began.
Eldric chewed the meat.
"When everything was ready…"
He looked at Kafka.
"Magnus attacked."
Grand Aurelis's own army turned against the king.
The six demon Paladins led the assault.
And in Yue—
Natasha Vaelorian.
Kafka stiffened.
Eldric spoke flatly.
"Magnus gave her cosmic power."
Natasha, obsessed with Magnus, accepted it without hesitation.
She led the Clan of Evil.
And slaughtered—
the Vaelorian clan.
Kafka tightened his grip on his spoon.
"All of them…?"
"Yes."
Eldric sighed.
"Almost all."
He pointed to himself.
"Me."
Then to Kafka.
"And your mother… who was in Grand Aurelis at the time."
But the tragedy didn't stop there.
The Roswalt clan was slaughtered as well.
And replaced by a new noble family—
The Safrost Family.
Masters of ice magic.
A family that used to rank only fifth among the nobles of Grand Aurelis.
"After that," Eldric said while wiping his mouth, "Magnus and the High Elves rewrote the entire history of the world."
Lies became truth.
Truth became forgotten legend.
Kafka stared at him.
"So… what did you do?"
Eldric smiled.
A very unpleasant smile.
"I got angry."
The answer was simple.
But his voice was as heavy as a mountain.
"I challenged the six Paladins."
Kafka nearly dropped his plate.
"Alone?!"
Eldric shrugged casually.
"Yes."
He pulled out another cigarette.
"I don't like crowds."
Kafka stared at him in disbelief.
"How could you fight all of them?"
Eldric lit the cigarette.
A small flame appeared at the tip like a newborn star.
Then he said casually:
"Because… I'm stronger than them."
Kafka shook his head.
"I mean—they were demon Paladins!"
Eldric looked at him.
"If I fought your father one-on-one…"
He grinned.
"I'd still be stronger."
Kafka froze.
"But… you said father was the symbol of the world's balance."
"That's true."
Eldric exhaled smoke.
"And I was too naïve back then."
He looked at the fire.
"I didn't care about politics."
"I didn't care about thrones."
"I only cared about my clan."
And his sister.
"So when the coup happened…"
He stood up.
"I dragged those six Paladins to Jotunheim."
Kafka went silent.
"Here?"
Eldric nodded.
"I sealed them here with me."
The battle lasted a long time.
A very long time.
The sky of Jotunheim cracked.
Mountains collapsed.
Rivers of blood flowed.
But in the end—
Eldric killed five of them.
Three fragments of Azhraviel's servants escaped their bodies.
But two of them he successfully sealed.
They were still here in Jotunheim.
And one,
managed to escape back to the kingdom.
"I don't know what happened after that," Eldric said.
"But from your story… Magnus has already replaced the dead Paladins."
Kafka looked at him.
"Why didn't Magnus send an army to kill you here?"
Eldric burst into laughter.
A laugh full of arrogance.
"Because Magnus isn't stupid."
He tapped his chest.
"I'm the strongest one."
The campfire flickered.
They ate in silence for a while.
Then—
Eldric stopped.
He turned his head toward the outside.
Kafka felt it too.
Two auras.
Massive.
Rotten.
Like greed and sloth turned into storms.
The ground of Jotunheim trembled.
Eldric stood up.
"Ah."
He smiled lazily.
"My guests have arrived."
Kafka shivered.
"Who…?"
Eldric looked back.
His eyes shone like knives.
"Two old friends."
In the distance,
two gigantic shadows approached.
Vorzeth — Greed.
Belphegorion — Sloth.
Servants of Azhraviel whom he had once sealed.
They could not die.
Every thirty days they resurrected.
And always returned to find Eldric.
An endless battle.
Eldric rolled his shoulders.
From his body—
a blood dagger slowly emerged through his skin.
A Vaelorian cultivation technique.
Kafka gaped.
Eldric grinned.
"Well then, little prince."
He pointed toward the distant battlefield.
"Watch carefully."
The winds of Jotunheim roared.
The aura of the two demons approached like a black storm.
Eldric spoke in his arrogant tone.
"Watch how your uncle… the strongest Vaelorian… fights."
And then,
he vanished.
Shooting forward like a crimson lightning bolt piercing the night.
And the world of Jotunheim once again prepared to witness bloodshed.
~To Be Continued~